


The Professor

by musamihi



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-27
Updated: 2011-12-27
Packaged: 2017-10-28 06:33:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/304786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musamihi/pseuds/musamihi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim's relationships with books are ... complicated?  With apologies to Joseph Conrad.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Professor

He folded the book back on itself, cracking its spine. It was too new. He hated reading this way, having to pry the pages apart, holding them down with his thumbs to keep them from hiding themselves again, having to wrench the thing open anew every time he wanted to move forward, to consume another page of prim, perfectly-placed words. Better when they were older, a little more mangled, less demure, worn out of their original shyness by years of hard use, of rifling fingers and hungry eyes and the occasional elbow to the middle. Better when they lay open for him when he asked. None of this insistence upon the pretense of propriety.

 _And the incorruptible Professor walked too, averting his eyes from the odious multitude of mankind. He had no future. He disdained it. He was a force. His thoughts caressed the image of ruin and destruction. He walked frail, insignificant, shabby, miserable - and terrible in the simplicity of his idea calling madness and despair to the regeneration of the world._   
[1](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/974/974-h/974-h.htm)   


He liked starting at the end. No surprises, that way, and it turned the tables - the mistake people made with books was letting them set the terms. Give an inch and they took a mile, stringing you along with one shameless tease after another, scattering red herrings around like rose petals, giving you a peek here and there of something _real_ before shutting it away again behind a pile of mocking symbolism, pointless prattle, stupid winking gestures meant only to hold back for as long as possible what they _knew_ you wanted. Start at the end, though, and they'd give everything up for free, because they'd never thought someone might be coming at them from behind. Completely undefended, unprepared, shocked and stung into releasing the meaty secret ending immediately, and stumbling - humiliated - over all the delicate scaffolding they'd put in place to lead you on, which collapsed the instant it was reversed. He loved slowly discovering all the tricks a book had _planned_ to use, laughing (not without affection) at the utter stupidity of it, at the sweet, idiotic notion that it had thought it'd be able to fool him.


End file.
